


words left unsaid

by The Master of the Deck (officiumdefunctorum)



Series: on wednesdays we whump [6]
Category: Wheel of Time - Robert Jordan
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, I Made Myself Cry, I tried to unpack Mat's feelings and made myself sad, Kinda, Men Crying, Post AMoL, Post-Canon, Unbeta'd, We Die Like Men, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:35:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23831725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/officiumdefunctorum/pseuds/The%20Master%20of%20the%20Deck
Summary: "You won't leave me, will you? If I can't keep up?"Mat thinks about the past, and what can't be undone.
Relationships: Perrin Aybara & Mat Cauthon
Series: on wednesdays we whump [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1661389
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23





	words left unsaid

**Author's Note:**

> oops, I made myself sad
> 
> (Created as part of the "On Wednesdays We Whump" for WoT Trash discord. Invite at the end!)

It felt like weeks since Mat had had a moment to himself. Granted, Mat didn’t often want them, preferring the company of others, or the bustle of a busy tavern to his own thoughts, but it had been... a long year.

Light, he still couldn’t believe it was actually over.

The Seanchan had quit the Field of Merrilor not long after the conclusion of the battle, leaving a token presence and some of their beasts to assist with the cleanup, but Tuon was back in Ebou Dar, for the time being. Mat had stayed, though he hadn’t really been sure why. He hadn’t even seen Nynaeve, yet, in spite of returning to Shayol Ghul over a day ago; she was busy healing. He’d talked to his Da, though.

 _I’m going to be a father,_ though Mat, as he sat on a barren rise overlooking The Valley of Thakandar.

The rubble of Shayol Ghul and the many tents of those who had fought in the Last Battle obscured much of what he saw, but here, above it all, Mat was alone. It had taken some time for him to climb up here, and not a little maneuvering to get rid of the Deathwatch guard that had been assigned to make sure he didn’t take a knife in the back, but Mat had just—he had just needed some _time_.

The wind changed and brought with it the scent of ash and decay that even the absence of The Dark One couldn’t erase. Closing his eye, Mat shivered. He didn’t need an ancient memory, for that; he had fresh ones all his own.

One in particular filled him with shame, and he let it wash over him. He let the knot in his gut tighten, finally, and bowed his head to it.

After all of his running, after two years and every excuse he could take to stay clear of The Dragon Reborn... When it had all been done—after _everything_ —he hadn’t even stayed for Rand’s funeral.

Light have mercy on him, but he hadn’t been able to do it. Twenty years of friendship that Mat had tossed aside to become little more than a wayward mercenary under Rand’s command, and they hadn’t had time to reconcile what was unsaid between them. Mat had run from Rand, and by the time he’d thought to stop, it had been too late.

Mat couldn’t stop thinking about the Aelfin, and the doorway beneath the Stone of Tear.

Rand had gone into that doorway. He’d gone in, and he’d asked his questions, and gotten his answers. Surely, _surely_ , he had to have asked how he could survive the Last Battle? He couldn’t have gone in knowing the prophecies and just... _not_ asked.

 _Why not?_ His mind supplied. What did he have to live for? A world he would break, and friends who had already spurned him?

When last Mat had seen him, Rand had seemed... he’d been _odd_. Like he was drunk or had had too much of the good tabac. He’d been calm and deliberate, but it had felt to Mat like it hadn’t gone much further than the surface. His visions of Rand had told a confusing tale, Rand often alone, but he’d ignored those as much as possible. Mat had had things to do, or so he’d told himself.

Mat had missed so much. Only this morning had he heard the story, told by one of the Ash’aman, of how Rand had been held captive by Aes Sedai and—locked in a box. For _days_. It had filled him with appalled rage, but it was an impotent rage, and one that had come too late to matter.

How much had happened to Rand that Mat didn’t even _know_ about? What burdens had he been carrying beneath that calm exterior he’d shown in the Tarasin palace gardens when he’d knelt before Tuon and begged her help?

The scent of fire drifted toward him again, and Mat spotted the distant, blackened area of ground where The Dragon Reborn had been given to the flames. Battered, scarred, with dragons of red and gold on his wrists, and herons burned into his palms, Rand—his friend—had burned for the final time.

Could that serene, tired looking man really have been him?

An image of Rand’s smiling face, young, maybe when they were sixteen or so, bloomed in his mind’s eye, and Mat really, truly felt the loss for the first time.

He’d never see his friend again. Rand was—Rand was _dead_.

Sitting there, Mat felt his chest constrict. Pressing a fist to his mouth, he closed his eye.

 _Rand was dead_.

Light, his best friend, the friend he had abandoned to grief and madness, was gone, and Mat couldn’t ever tell him he was sorry.

It was too late to be the friend Rand had needed. To put an arm around his shoulders and tell him it was okay to be scared, that Mat would win the bloody battle for him and be there with a pipe when he was done fooling around in Shayol Ghul, and he’d better be quick about it.

Mat couldn’t ever tell Rand that he was—that he was bloody _proud_ of him.

A groan of grief crawled out of his chest, and Mat sat forward, hugging himself and gasping in a breath.

Rand was dead, his body burned on a pyre that Mat hadn’t watched.

Mat felt sick. Light, but he felt like the lowest kind of scum. Somehow, _somehow_ Mat had thought—he’d thought that Rand would make it through. Despite the prophecies, that Rand would still be there at the end if it all, and then— _then_ they could talk.

“You were supposed to _live_ , you bloody bastard!” Mat shouted to the empty air.

Ash drifted on the wind.

“You were supposed to live,” he said again.

Mat’s face crumpled, and loud, ugly sobs burst out of his chest, his pipe falling from numb fingers and clattering to the ground.

_Rand, the Light have mercy, I’m so sorry._

Mat might have sat there for an hour, mourning his best friend and the words he’d never said, when he heard the approach of footsteps. By then, the sobs had quieted, and he was just slumped, feeling drained, guilty, and unutterably sad.

Perrin sat down beside him.

“You know,” Mat rasped, his voice distorted from weeping. “I didn’t—somehow I thought he’d make it out of there.”

“ _He_ didn’t,” said Perrin. “The Dragon’s Peace... I think that was his goodbye.”

“One hell of a suicide note,” Mat muttered, angrily wiping at his eye. “Light, Perrin. I—I didn’t—I _couldn’t_ —”

“Mat,” Perrin said, gently resting a big hand on his shoulder. “He knew.”

“Light, I was such a _coward_ ,” Mat laughed, bitterly. “I ran away from him, Perrin, I just—The Light blind me I just _left_ him to do all this on his own.”

“Mat,” chided Perrin. “You didn’t. He sent you away, and you did what he needed you to do.”

“Did I?” Mat smiled without humor. “He said he’d use me, and maybe he did. But when did I ever listen to him when I didn’t want to? I was—I was _glad_ to leave him.”

For a minute, Perrin didn’t say anything. The silence between them felt like condemnation.

“It was bad, Mat. I think—I think he felt better knowing that if something happened to you, that it wasn’t because of him. I wasn’t around much more than you—”

“You were there for him when those bloody Aes Sedai took him,” Mat interrupted, fists clenching. “You saved him. And I—I was just—”

“You were where he needed you to be,” said Perrin, quietly. “You always were.”

“But what if he bloody needed me to be with _him!_ ” Mat shouted. “I was his _friend_ , burn it, I was his best bloody friend, and didn’t—I didn’t act like it, did I? I abandoned him.”

“The pattern called us to him when he needed us,” Perrin insisted.

“Oh, fuck the bloody _pattern_ ,” Mat spat. “The Dragon Reborn might have needed me to win the bloody last battle, but Rand? Rand al’Thor? Light, what about _him?_ ” Mat’s voice clouded with grief, and his tirade drained away. “What about my _friend?_ ”

“He never blamed you,” Perrin sighed, looking at his hands. “Or me.”

“Of course he didn’t,” Mat swiped at his eye. “He never met a fall he wouldn’t take for someone else, bloody idiot.”

“We all made mistakes, Mat,” said Perrin. “There weren’t any right answers in trying to fight the shadow.”

After a minute of quiet contemplation, Mat spoke up again.

“My memories, some of them have been coming back,” Mat said. “And there was—when we were separated, after Shadar Logoth, we were in a tight spot in Four Kings, at an inn; darkfriends were after us, and Rand... Light, it must have been one of the first times he really channeled. There was lightning, and it blinded me. He had to hold my hand while we ran away.” Mat clenched his fist, looking at it, the new old memory of Rand’s cold hand gripping his as they ran through the rain.

“I remember feeling so scared, and helpless, and I asked him,” Mat paused, breathing for a moment to make sure he could get the words out. “I asked him if he wouldn’t leave me. Do you know what he said?”

Perrin, sitting next to Mat in a similar posture, wiped a hand under his eyes and shook his head.

 _“‘I won’t leave you,’”_ Mat whispered. _“‘I won’t leave you no matter what.’”_

They sat, the strange air of Shayol Ghul hanging around them like a miasma, in spite of the new growth of grass that had come up in a swathe across the valley.

_Was this another farewell gift from you, Rand? Flowers to grow on the killing field?_

“I never—” Mat pursed his lips and took a breath. “I… I missed him, these last two years. And I never got the chance to tell him that. That I missed him,” Mat’s voice warped on the last words, the pain bubbling up anew. “And now missing him is all I’ve got.”

Mat met Perrin’s golden eyes, his own full of misery. “Light, he’s—he’s _gone._ ”

Enfolding Mat in his thick arms, Perrin held Mat while they both mourned for the friend they had lost, and the words left unsaid.

Not far to the south, a black-haired man on a horse paused in his ride, turning his head to look the way he had come, as if hearing something on the wind calling him back.

“Not yet,” said the man to that wind. “One day, but not yet.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've always been pretty hard on Mat for how he treats Rand, especially at the beginning of the story. What sucks is, Mat grows as a person, but by the time that happens, events have conspired to keep them apart for most of the story. I don't accept one weird, comical interaction between them in Ebou Dar as a "water under the bridge" bro moment for these two, and I don't think Mat would, either. Not with Rand dead. _There is no closure_ , and that, my dears, is fucking tragic.
> 
> Want to talk about it? Join the [Wheel of Time Trash discord](https://discord.gg/XUvCR2z) for shipping, fic, prompts, headcanons, smut, kinks, and general flailing about this stupid series that we all love for some reason.


End file.
